Overhearings Less to the Purpose
by timunderwood9
Summary: SAMPLE TILL FALL 2021: At Rosings Park our hero Mr. Darcy overhears Elizabeth disclose her true opinion of him to her friend Charlotte Collins. Her opinions were rather less favorable to him than he had anticipated. But how hard can it be to charm her into thinking more nicely of him?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

One day during the course of his annual attendance upon his verbose and unwaveringly confident aunt, the honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Fitzwilliam Darcy returned from a bracing morning ride.

Disappointment. The ride had been a deuced disappointment.

No Elizabeth Bennet. Hadn't seen her fine, slender figure, not once, while riding round every pathway and byway that he'd seen her haunt before.

What a dislikeable disappointment! What was the point of a morning ride if he'd have no chance to tip his hat to Elizabeth? For exercise? Bah!

This wholly inappropriate infatuation had come to dominate every one of Darcy's thoughts. And the dratted fact was, he wasn't sure any longer that it _was _just an infatuation, or that it was wholly inappropriate. She made him laugh, and smile, and he would very much like to have her present in his bed. All rational considerations.

Darcy could not stop thinking, and thinking, and thinking even more about Miss Bennet. Every one of his damned thoughts was about her.

At least half of them.

She _knew _he often rode out in hopes of seeing her. Was she maybe in a feminine tiff about something he'd said to her, and this was how she chose to punish him? Except Darcy searched his mind, and as always, he could detect nothing he had said which departed from the utmost propriety and properness.

Another question arose: Was Elizabeth more like a cherub or a nymph?

Darcy's mind dropped its pique to enter a full contemplation of _that _question of import, and alas, his concupiscent mind, against his more honorable intentions, flashed an image into Darcy's head of a fine painting of a naked nymph that his Uncle, the Earl of Matlock, had painted on the interior of his study door.

Except this nymph in Darcy's mind had Elizabeth's face and hair, and what he imagined her naked body would look like.

The image in his mind smiled like Elizabeth too.

Elizabeth was _definitely _more nymph than cherub. And he _definitely_ should not think of her in that manner.

Darcy flushed as he handed his riding crop and the reins of his fine noble black stallion named George, after the king, to the young groom who pulled his forelock humbly when he greeted Darcy. Lady Catherine insisted all her servants make some gesture of obeisance when in the presence of the better sort.

Such as Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Darcy strode proudly, chest up thrust and head high, towards the grand entrance to his aunt's great estate. A fine façade, marble columns, fresh paint, a neatly cropped lawn, and grand rows of windows recently reglazed at a ridiculous expense.

A fine effect, the windows created a fine effect.

Whilst in matters of _substance _Lady Catherine lacked substance, in matters of pomp and ceremony, she knew how to make the grandest of appearances.

There was a statue of Venus in the entrance hall, and the molded white marble undressed woman flashed Elizabeth's image vividly before Darcy again.

The nude nymph Elizabeth.

Was she more like a nude nymph or the naked goddess of beauty?

She was too light, too smiling, and too nice to be anything like Aphrodite, who was a quite immoral woman in the stories. Nymph… nude nymph.

Darcy member rose, against his will, in the contemplation of Elizabeth. _Down, down, deuced creature. Obey my orders._

It did not.

A gentleman should never imagine a gentlewoman, the daughter of a gentleman, in such a pointed manner. He owed every honor, and every bowing and consideration to Elizabeth. Even though she was possessed of unfortunately low, bothersome connections.

Mrs. Bennet particularly.

The thought of Mrs. Bennet at last banished the nude imagining of Elizabeth Bennet to the back of Darcy's mind, where it would return, inevitably, as he lie in bed desperate for sweet sleep which would free him for a few hours from the unending thoughts of his unreasonable, uncontrollable and irrational attachment.

Rosings Park was a grand, great hall. One of the greatest grand houses of England. A noble and vast structure worthy of the widow of a baronet, the daughter of an earl, and dare Darcy think it — he dared: Such a place was worthy of the aunt of a Darcy of Pemberley.

Such a man as he, possessed of every right to walk through such apartments, such galleries, to call on such power and wealth — Such a man could not lower himself to sanctify through holy matrimony a connection with a woman whose mother was screechingly vulgar, whose youngest sister ran wild and drunk, whose middle sister could not tell that she was utterly unsuited to perform upon the piano, and whose eldest sister, Jane…

Here Darcy's mind stuttered.

It was no simple matter for even a gentleman of such excellence in the arts of disparaging those below himself as Fitzwilliam Darcy to find that with which he could criticize Miss Jane Bennet.

She smiled too much.

Yes. Miss Jane Bennet smiled far too much.

Darcy paused in the corridor, next to the cleverly concealed door that led to the housekeeper's rooms and office. A cracked open line allowed the faint sound of voices from within to be heard by the quality passing by.

Darcy paused.

Should he enter within, and inform the housekeeper of the grave mistake she had made. Being audible was quite not the thing — servants should be neither seen nor heard, but provide a semblance of invisibility, as though elves or gremlins kept everything clean, tidy, and in order.

Darcy was no extreme stickler on such matters himself — mistakes would be made by even the best staff, and he rather preferred to remember that the comfort he lived in was provided by the effort of other humans to whom he owed a duty to be a beneficent and kindly master. However Lady Catherine would be quite put out if she noticed such a failure upon the part of her servants.

Yes. It was best to warn the housekeeper before she aroused the ire of her masterful mistress.

As Darcy's hand went to further pry open the door, a lovely, sweet, elegant, and lively, light voice, a voice he was most familiar with came from that crack: "For heaven's sake, Charlotte, why must we wait on Lady Catherine's _housekeeper_? I have quite missed my usual walk by now."

Mrs. Collins replied to Elizabeth with a long suffering sigh. "Her ladyship was most insistent that I consult with Mrs. Longwaite again upon the improvement that can be made through adding even _more _shelves to a closet."

"But why am _I _here?"

"Did you not wish to practice upon the piano in the housekeeper's room?" Mrs. Collins added, her voice teasing, "You shall certainly be in no one's way there."

Elizabeth laughed. "That woman is quite certain of herself — near as much as her nephew."

Darcy's attention was suddenly riveted. The woman he loved was talking about himself.

He could not move, though he knew he was bound by honor to break his silence, and inform them that he was present. It would be dishonorable indeed to wait until Elizabeth accidentally revealed her inner affection for him, and her hopeless longing for him to lower himself far enough to make _that _request of her. It would be wrong to learn of Elizabeth's inner turmoil, which must match his own, through subterfuge.

"Eliza, you ought speak kinder of Mr. Darcy."

_Kinder_? But she had merely complimented him, for his similarity to his confident aunt. Or more specifically, she had complimented Lady Catherine for her similarity to _him_, proving how he was longingly present in Elizabeth's thoughts.

"Oh, must you insist upon that nonsense." Elizabeth's voice was laughing, and left Darcy rather confused.

"He does not treat you in the way of a neutral observer — he admires you, Lizzy, and he is likely to make you an offer."

What? They dared to speak about him, to speculate upon his intentions? He had made no such determination.

Darcy's pique about this presumptuousness was cut short by Elizabeth's quick response. "He shall not, I am certain of it."

Good. She should be.

Elizabeth was modest and sensible. His Elizabeth knew the difference in their places, and she knew that if he did lower himself to make an offer to her, it would be purely a condescension to her, and neither something she might expect, nor deserve.

"He looks at you a great deal, and he—"

"From absence of mind alone, I am sure. Or he hopes to find something further to criticize me upon. He does dislike me very much."

_What_? Elizabeth surely did not think he _disliked _her. She must know his feelings, she must understand the deep struggle, full of pain, that he was burdened with. She spoke, Darcy was sure, merely to hide her _true _affection from Mrs. Collins.

"He does not dislike you, I am sure of _that_," Mrs. Collins replied smilingly. "My dear Eliza — admit it: he is a handsome man — no Mr. Collins."

"Worse, entirely worse in manners."

That statement was so ridiculous that Darcy could not even begin to interpret it as anything but a joke.

"Do not joke, Lizzy, he is ten times Mr. Collins's consequence, you cannot spurn _him _so easily as you refused my husband."

"I assure you I can — whether he dislikes me or not, I dislike _him _very much. We have heard what Wickham has said upon his honor and behavior. Even were he to make me an offer, I would refuse it, and without any consideration upon the matter."

Darcy went pale. His heart stuttered. He felt a pain, like tears at this firm rejection. But his sense of confidence clung to one thought: Surely Elizabeth merely engaged in dissimulation, to assure her friend that she had no expectations, and her true sentiments were very different from what she at this moment claimed them to be.

"I am sure you could not," Charlotte said confidently, "spurn a man of a hundred times _Wickham's_ consequence merely for the sake of that young gentleman. You would not be such a fool — if he does ask you, the mere fact of his interest will make you see matters in different light."

"I assure you, I would refuse him. Someone must finally give that overbearing gentleman the rebuke he has never received, for I am sure he was dreadfully spoiled by his parents—"

"Your parents spoiled _you_, Eliza."

"Dreadfully spoiled, never given a word contrariwise from anyone, man, woman or dog. Oh, it would give me great pleasure to refuse the offer of _his_ hand. His character does not appeal to me — so arrogant. So silent. So generally unpleasant to all. He'd not said one word to me before I'd seen how highly he thought of himself, walking round and round the ballroom with his nose turned up as if God himself knew him by his Christian name."

"As the wife of a member of a clergy, I can tell you it is sound theology to believe that God knows the Christian name of each and every one of us."

Elizabeth laughed, and then she said in a faux deep voice that Darcy knew, to his flushed embarrassment, was supposed to be a horrifying mimicry of his own voice, "She may be _tolerable_, but she is not nearly handsome enough to tempt _me_, I do not give credit to girls spurned by other men. Ho, ho, ho."

"He does not sound like that — his second impression of you, I assure you, was of greater kindness than his first."

"Not at all."

"Why then did he dance with you? Why does he so persistently look at you? Why does he seek to engage you in conversation every time we dine here at the great house?"

"Perversity? Self-hatred — I can quite believe _that _of him."

"You are determined to be dense."

_Self-hatred_? So that was what she truly thought of him. _That _was no joking dismissal of her own feelings. That was Elizabeth Bennet's honest view of him. And to think, he had nearly inclined himself so low as to come down to her level, so he might raise her up to his own lofty station.

There was a sound of standing and a chair being pushed back in the other room. "Ships passing in the wind — where is Mrs. Longwaite? She makes us wait too long. You may be obliged to consult upon yet more shelves in the closet, but I shall not practice the piano. I can only have the distinction of being able to claim I would have talent if only I made an effort so long as I do not make that effort — the spring day awaits me."

And then, before Darcy could do more than stiffen in horrified surprise, the sliding door to the housekeeper's room was pushed open, and Darcy found himself standing eye to eye with the smiling, rosy-cheeked and suddenly hateful visage of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

He coldly bowed his head to her.

"Good day, Miss Bennet. _Good day_."

And with another bow, and one last look at her lovely, lively, icy visage, Fitzwilliam Darcy stalked sulkily, though he'd never admit such to himself, from the hallway and back out of the house.

* * *

"Good heavens!" Charlotte said to Elizabeth as Mr. Darcy heaved off in high dudgeon. "I do fear Mr. Darcy may have heard us."

Elizabeth giggled. "I do believe he did — poor man, to learn not all the world thinks high of him."

"Eliza! You will have substantially damaged your credit with him. Now he may so chuse _not _to offer to you."

"It would be terrible if you never have the option to say, 'I predicted so' to me."

"I only worry for you. A great opportunity indeed."

Elizabeth laughed again. "I will have no guilt at what I said, though it did injure his feelings. He has spoken so mortifyingly of me. And that is what is deserved when one listens unasked to a conversation."

"No, no, you were crueler by far to him than he had been to you. You could not possibly care for the opinion of a man who had never spoken a word to you, and who was disliked by the room in general. But you savaged him with the knowledge of at least an acquaintance, and I believe as the woman whom he admired."

Elizabeth frowned. Perhaps Charlotte was right — she imagined hearing someone who she thought had a high view of herself speaking in such a way. And perhaps she hadn't really been fair to Darcy. He was bad, but she would not swear upon a Bible if dragged before a tribunal that he was _so very _bad as she had made him out to be.

Charlotte sighed touching her hand to her breast, "Poor Mr. Darcy. Poor, poor Mr. Darcy. I feel exceedingly for him. You saw how devastated he looked as he went off."

"He looked as stiff and sour as usual."

"No, no — there would often be a glint in his eye as he looked at you, you must remember that. Missing now." Charlotte sighed, and shook her head softly. "Poor, poor Mr. Darcy."

Elizabeth did remember that glint in Darcy's eye, but she did not want, especially not _now_, to begin to believe Darcy had fond feelings towards herself.

"Poor Darcy," Charlotte repeated sadly. "Such a handsome man. To have his feelings trampled upon in such a way. I feel for him greatly."

Elizabeth had to struggle not to feel for him herself.

He had in fact looked very sad as he walked away. And then, before Elizabeth could make her escape to the outdoors, and embark upon a long walk amongst the blooming flowers, Mrs. Longwaite at last ceased to make them wait long, and Elizabeth found herself out of politeness obliged to practice for twenty minutes on the piano in the housekeeper's room, where she really was in nobody's way.

Charlotte for her part gained excellent advice, much worth hearing, upon the best arrangement of shelves in a closet.

**AN: Standard story, while it is locked by Amazon in Kindle Unlimited I can't publish the whole thing here, but there are a lot of readers I know who like being told when I publish things there. In about a year an a half I'll remove it from KU and post it here. For now I hope you like this sample, there will be one more chapter that comes out in about a week.**

**Hope you like.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Fitzwilliam Darcy toweringly walked in a rage through the field and glen, and beck and wildernesses, and shrubbery and coppiced wood, and through a pomaced wood too. He leapt over fences and streams, and drainage ditches. He muddied his boots in lately manured fields, and he waded through the early growth of the meadows, trampling a path behind him that would leave several farmers quite annoyed with him.

He was better than her.

He. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Better. Elizabeth Bennet, not better!

He had every right to think himself better.

Self-hatred? Ha! If only she knew. If only she knew how much he clearly had hated his name, his honor, his duties, and his own good self. He had nearly asked her to marry him. Only serious hatred for himself could have led him to seriously consider doing such. Of course good sense would have reestablished itself in the end, and prevented any such foolishness.

The day was cold, but Darcy wore a heavy enough coat that he began to perspire heavily in the clear sun, making him additionally miserable.

He might have married her — any girl would have agreed to marry him, even Elizabeth Bennet, if he condescended so, so low as to ask.

And she despised him. She despised him! She thought he hated himself. She thought…

Rude, arrogant, believing himself above others, and calling her merely tolerable.

Well, she wasn't even tolerable. She was a horrible woman.

Darcy stomped through more manured fields. He found floating meadow, and slipped as he crossed it, scraping the bottom of his hand, and then climbed out, his coat and his mood muddy. He alighted on the far side like a raging tower in a towering rage.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was not happy.

Eventually he tired out his muscles, though not his resentment, and returned to his aunt's house.

He saw Elizabeth that night when she arrived with a dinner invitation to Rosings along with the Collinses. And when he saw her, he raised his nose to her and sneered. He would not speak to her at all. Not ever again. He also determined to not look at her once, the whole night. They had noticed how often he looked at her, well now he would not torture himself with further glances.

Alas, this was a resolution by far the easier to make than to keep.

Colonel Fitzwilliam, as though driven by some particular perversity and the intention of tormenting Darcy, found the place by Elizabeth's side that Darcy had in the norm forcefully pushed himself into. That gentleman sat near her, and he had Elizabeth laughing the entire evening, and each time he heard Elizabeth's musical, mystical, tinkling laugh, he wanted to look at her.

And sometimes he did. But it was painful to see her, and to know that she despised him.

Thus Darcy brooded the entire night. He could concentrate on nothing else, and at cards he lost three pounds simple to Anne, who could not keep the count in whist if her fortune depended upon it.

Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.

And then, to Darcy's yet further torment, when he fell into bed, unhappy, that image his mind had constructed of Elizabeth as a naked nymph returned to torment him. But it was not his lust that the image aroused in him — rather a different base emotion.

She laughed at him, giggling with her pretty, but vague in his imagination nymph friends. "So awkward. He cuts such a ridiculous figure. Even his money is not enough a reason to like him. Nobody ever likes him for anything but his money. Ho, ho, ho."

And when, in his dreams, Darcy tried to speak to this naked nymph Elizabeth, she giggled and looked at her friend with an such expressive gesture that showed how much she despised him, and then Darcy felt a rush of self-hatred, and he saw how despite every pretension to the contrary, he was on the bottom naught but a worthless wriggling worm, and that like Elizabeth, Papa had loved Wickham more than he.

And Darcy woke.

Covered in sweat. Breathing hard. The scent of the pine fire light on the air. The smooth feel of the silken sheets on his naked body.

Darcy rose from his bed, a pain in his chest. He pulled a dressing gown over his shoulders, to guard against the early April cold, and he walked to the window to stare out at the view provided by the thin moonlight.

In the distance he could see the dark outline of the parsonage house.

During nights previous he had stared across the park betwixt them, and thought how Elizabeth lie in peaceful repose in her bed, likely thinking thoughts of hope, thoughts she dare not confess to herself, towards him. He would think of her soft hair floating around her head, and her modest flannel night clothes, and of that hint of leg made visible as she twisted and turned in bed at night.

Sometimes as Darcy stared towards the house where she slept, his loins would grow engorged.

Not tonight. Not ever again.

Worthless wriggling worm.

That was what Darcy felt. By declaring him to be filled with self-loathing, Elizabeth had somehow given that to him, as though her low opinion of him mattered more, had more truth, than his high opinion of himself. As though he suddenly needed, though he dared not admit it, as though he needed her to think well of himself, for him to be able to think well himself of himself.

Ridiculous. Absurd.

And true.

She lie in bed, no doubt awake. Maybe she stared from her window across to the great house, and she thought rude thoughts of him. She thought about how disagreeable he was, about how rude, about how he had spurned her, about every awkwardness he had ever shown.

Elizabeth disliked him.

And Darcy could not abide this.

It did not matter that they could not marry — even if Elizabeth liked him as much as he had believed she did, they would not have married, for he did owe too much to himself and to his family name and connections. But he hated that a woman who he… liked.

He still liked her.

Damn.

Shouldn't he hate her as much as she hated him?

But he did like her. He had shown himself very poorly to her. And he had never flattered her vanity, and he had acted as though she were beneath him… which she was…

There was a hint in Darcy's mind.

The beginning of that vital change already: No woman worth pleasing would be pleased by a man who refused to see her as anything but far below him, and who saw her family as contemptible, and that if he wanted Elizabeth, he must strive to think better of those she loved.

But what came to Darcy consciously above that slow moving shift was that he must find some way to make her come to think well of him.

He slammed his fist into his palm.

Elizabeth Bennet would come to like him, he would charm her into being friendly towards him, though not into wishing that he would make her an offer, and then, and only then, would he depart from Rosings, leaving her in the full knowledge of the worth of the man who she had once spurned.

It so followed that Fitzwilliam Darcy's first attempt to charm Elizabeth did not turn a resounding success. It failed. Badly.

The next morning, bleary eyed from a lack of sleep due to his hurt heart, and wild plannings for how to achieve his aim of reversing Elizabeth's feelings with regards to him, Mr. Darcy walked out towards that grove which she had told him that she preferred to take her daily walk.

At the time he believed that her specification had been a gesture forward and flirtatious, but now better information showed that Elizabeth had thought it would convince him to avoid that grove, since he would obviously not want to find her.

Aha!

She was there. Now for the first step.

Darcy quickly came up to her, and Elizabeth watched hm with a curious look in her eye.

However Darcy found it entirely impossible to speak to her anything charming. When the choice was entirely his, when she was the one longing for him, and he the one contemplating whether to offer to a woman so far beneath him… it had been easy to speak to Elizabeth at such a time.

Now though, Darcy found he could not speak a word.

Elizabeth looked at him with her dancing eyes, and a growing smirking smile, just like the one she wore in his dream, when she wore nothing else.

He could not say a word, though he opened his mouth twice, but no sound from his throat.

At last, mercifully taking mercy on Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth said, "Good day, Mr. Darcy. I had not expected to find you walking about here."

"Good day, Miss Bennet," he croaked out through a rough throat as she looked at him, her eyes smiling. "I had hoped…"

His voice cracked, and he found himself looking into her dazzling eyes, and anything else he might say fled.

She smiled and looked away at last. "What had you hoped, Mr. Darcy?"

That question. It lit a pain in his stomach again. And another sense of the foolishness of his pretensions, of his belief in himself as the master of the universe, when he had never been.

"I had hoped I might find you… you look very well today. In that summer dress. And you have a fine… fine…" Darcy shook his head in confusion. What had he meant to compliment. Her bosom?

She had a fine bosom.

Entirely inappropriate to think about that, or to mention it to her. A woman should always know her breasts were beautiful, but never be informed direct by a gentleman's word, except for maybe her husband's.

And she looked at him, with that mocking smirk, disliking him.

"I do have many fine things," Elizabeth said agreeably. "It is kind of you to say so. But I wonder why I find you here — I did tell you that I preferentially prefer this grove."

"You had."

Elizabeth opened her mouth. She closed it. "I had rather thought you preferred to—" She shook her head frowning.

"Yes?"

"Let us walk. How… how is your day. Have you… uh… what do you do on mornings here?"

"Go about riding. Dreadful dull in the house. Go out, think… what does anyone do?"

"A useless class."

"What?"

"The gentry, we do not do a great deal, but we gain a great deal."

"No! We are the backbone of the country, the rulers, the ones who ensure the stability that is craved by the lower orders, and prevent them from hacking each other to death as they did in France."

"If you say so — seems to me they mostly hacked their gentry to death. So that is why I support every effort to suppress the scurrilous press. We can't give the lower classes any chance to tell each other how worthless we are."

Darcy blinked at her. "Does that not sacrifice our liberties as Englishmen? We have rights that those under the tyrannical French rulers do not possess."

"Better to have no rights, than to be torn to pieces, and then guillotined by the mob."

That bit of wisdom reminded Darcy that he was here to charm Elizabeth. So she liked him. "A… delightful… delightful… insight, Miss Bennet. You must present it in London. I shall present it. At parliament."

"Are you mocking me?"

"No! I wish to praise."

"By saying you agree when you do not at all? A strange form of praise, I wish to be treated as a serious fellow human being — though I confess what I said was more in jest than seriousness."

Darcy at this became silent.

He had tried to charm her, and she spurned his attempt. What should he do next?

They walked for several minutes, toing and froing, before Elizabeth at last asked, "I must admit, I have no notion of what your thoughts are — or why you persistently attach yourself to me on this walk, as we have little that either wishes to say to the other."

Darcy flushed.

She was annoyed. Annoyed in real life, at him. And she was dismissing him and rejecting him once more.

"Jove — I cannot do this!" Darcy exclaimed. "I had no notion it would be so difficult."

"Heavens! That sounds most serious. Mr. Darcy, what is it that you wished to do but cannot?"

"Be friendly when I know you dislike me!"

"You know that? Why, Mr. Darcy, I assure you that I do not—"

"Do not lie. I overheard you."

"Oh." Elizabeth blinked, and then she smiled insouciantly. "Maybe I do dislike you — the first words you spoke to me were quite insulting."

Darcy flushed. "Tolerable enough? Had I said that — I had forgotten completely."

"Oh do not worry on that matter — you gave ample other reason to dislike you. 'Tis merely to me a story of great value as entertainment — I see you are hurt by my dislike. I assure you that I do not want you to feel disliked in general. I had no idea my sentiments would throw you into such a dizzy, since you really cannot care more for me than I for you."

Darcy thought it would be neither advantageous nor profitable to admit to her at this moment that he cared greatly indeed for her clever, insightful, and disdainful (towards himself) opinions.

"Have you considered," Elizabeth added, "that it is quite petty, and decidedly unreasoning and foolish to care overmuch what a single, small woman such as myself thinks of you?"

"It is not petty to care what a friend thinks."

"Friend? We have only ever argued — and I am sure a great many of my friends think horrible thoughts about me. I learned my cynicism, you see, upon my father's knees."

"I think ill towards no one who I call a friend. Who I treat kindly."

"But we are not friends — oh you dislike that." Elizabeth laughed. "Never in my deepest imagination would I have though you needed to be loved by all." She patted him on the sleeve. "We all have our flaws."

"I do not need to be loved by all!"

"But you need to be loved by me, now that you know my ill opinion? I assure you, that what you try shall not work."

Darcy threw up his hands in frustration. "I assure you it shall. I am determined that you will come to like me, be it the last thing I do."

"And I am determined not to like you, be it the last thing I do."

"And you accuse me of irrationality — I am very likeable. My friends all say that." Darcy frowned at that. In truth none of them, except for Mr. Bingley, had ever said anything of the sort — and Bingley liked everyone.

"Mr. Darcy, I dare say you have many fine features. But I see none of them. But goodbye, and good bye! We have reached the parsonage once more, and I must scamper away."

And Elizabeth did so, laughing to herself, her hips swinging, and the yellow dress she wore, delightfully light and bright in the spring sun waving about her fine legs. There was just a hint of white silken stocking visible about the ankle.

How now would he be able to charm her?

He had foolishly placed her on her guard since he had unstrategically revealed to Elizabeth that he hoped to charm her into liking him.

Darcy returned to the wooded grove so liked by Elizabeth.

Jove, what the deuce would he do now.

The beautiful verdure of the trees was thickening day by day, and the branches bent further and further down under the heavy weight of the multiplying leaves in their rich green hues. There were thick brown reeds along one section of the path, where a burbling stream flowed past, and elsewhere along the thicket growing about the stream there were rich beds of flowers in purples, reds and yellows. Doves flapped back and forth across the pathway, lovers cooing to each other and chasing after their playing companions.


End file.
